Chelsea Should Not Fire Carlo Ancelotti After Cup Crash

Not only are they destined to finish empty handed, but they are still fighting to stay in Champions League for next year.

There will be many rumor mongers predicting that Ancelotti will be fired after this season. While this may seem like a good decision to the short sighted, the wise will know the folly of making such a move.

If one were to examine the situation, It will be obvious that Ancelotti failed because he was set up for failure.

Summer Exodus

Before this season began, There was a mass exodus of players from Chelsea. The reasoning was that many of these players were adding up the wage bill and were on the wrong side of thirty.

Ballack was the most notable of those who left. It sounded like a good plan, except, there were no re-inforcements bought in.

The Chelsea squad were thin. Any injury to their top players would now mean that Chelsea would not be able to cope like they previously could. This was a well known fact.

Injecting Youth

None of Chelsea's previous managers had made merging youth into the team a priority. They were content to purchase experienced players who did not have to be moulded.

With Chelsea's average age increasingly worrying, It became a priority now to try to infuse youth into the first team.

Ancelotti has done well to try to merge Ramirez and David Luiz into the squad. Kakuta is on loan in Fulham and Sturridge is on fire in Bolton. With time, both these players will become better and should be ready to play for the first team.

However, injecting youth also means injecting inexperience. These young players need time to get into a rhythm (some more than others).

While, this may affect the performances this season, this can only be beneficial for the future.

Unforeseen Injuries

Drogba had malaria. Lampard needed to have a surgery and was out of action for a long spell. Alex, the center back partner of John Terry, was also injured.

These players are the backbone of a thin Chelsea team. Last year Chelsea could afford to lose these players for long spells but not this year.

Malouda, who started the season so brightly, was injured. Benayoun—a creative and versatile midfielder—was also not available for most of the season.

Most of these players missed vital spells of games and even after they came never got back to their splendid form.

Assistant Coach

The firing of Ray Wilkins remains a mystery. A bigger mystery is why Michael Emenalo was hired to replace "Butch" Wilkins.

Ray has a wealth of experience and his knowledge of football and English makes him a good buffer man between both the players and the Italian speaking manager.

While it may be coincidence that the firing of Ray Wilkins was succeeded by a horrible loss of form by Chelsea, one still cannot deny the vital role he played in the team's success.

Torres

Who knew that spending 50 million pounds could cause more problems than solve?

Torres was bought in the middle of the season and was expected to boost Chelsea's firing power. Sadly, for Chelsea and Torres, he is woefully out of form, out of pace and is taking time to fully understand the Chelsea formations and how he fits in.

However, his price tag means Ancelotti is forced to play him almost every game, a situation that only makes things worse for Chelsea.

I personally believe that had Drogba and Anelka started Chelsea would have given a better fight against Manchester United.

Continuity

Ancelotti is the latest coach in a long list of coaches that have been hired by Chelsea after the Russian takeover.

If Chelsea want to emulate the success of Manchester United and bring out the best in its players, it needs a coach who has been in the post long enough to understand the English game, his players strengths and weaknesses as well as the opponent's traits.

They needs a coach who is more worried about helping the team succeed than worrying about whether he will he get fired or not.

Ancelotti, even through this adversity, has done well to keep Chelsea floating in third place (remember the Scolari era ?) and he is young enough to carry on the torch for a long time.

If we ponder over some of these reasons it becomes clear that Ancelotti should not and cannot be fired fired by Chelsea after this year.